Thursday, May 1, 2008

Ready for Saturday

Saturday is the May Classic 5k, and I am pretty excited about this one. Not for the reasons that I'm usually excited about a race for, but because we will have a good showing of participants that are affiliated with our clinic. 26 and counting..... I think we had another 4 sign up this week for the race, which brings to 30 (which was the goal). Considering we had 3 people sign up last year, this is a major improvement!!! Well, a lot has happened since last year, and I am hoping that this can become a tradition for our clinics. The race is having a corporate challenge, to see which company has the most people signed up for the race. Last year, Albertsons won. Little ol' Renewal Rehab is much smaller obviously, but we pack a punch!!! Hopefully we can get an award of some type for all the folks that came out in support of this.... Thanks again to everyone!!!! I so appreciate you all doing this, and I'm sure you are going to have a great deal of fun!!!!!!

My brother came in town for a meeting (he works for Red Bull) and decided to stay the night here in Tampa, so we could hang out and he could see my family. Once I got home from work, we decided to go out for a bite to eat and Chris accompanied us. We didn't get home too late, but I told myself I wouldn't set the alarm to get up to run. I will just start running whenever... usually that's when I wake up early... which was the case today. I was out the door running by 6:45, and because the weather was so nice, I decided to do a pretty long run. Again, right now I don't have any limitations or structure on how my running schedule is. I just usually decide while I'm running what I actually want to do. The first mile I felt stiff, because I ran a hard Ivy Lake/Suncoast Tempo Run yesterday, the second mile I felt in my groove, and then the start of the 3rd mile, I had to go to the bathroom.....immediately!!! So, luckily I was by the park bathroom, and I was able to take care of business... and then the run finally started, with no more hiccups!! I ended up going on the Suncoast Trail, which is about 1 mile from my house, and ran on it for around 5 miles. By time I made it home, I put in 12 miles. The weather was perfect, and based on my avg. HR, it showed. I was able to hold under a 9:00/mile pace (8:42/mile pace if you take out the bathroom break) while keeping my HR at a 152 avg. So that is one of the nice things about not being in training mode. You can take advantage of these beautiful days in Tampa, and put in an extra couple of miles if its perfect outside.

Map of Ivy Lake/Suncoast Long Run


Can't wait to see all of you this weekend. For those of you that don't know where the race is, Chris will be at the Wesley Chapel clinic on Saturday morning, and leaving at 6 am, so if you get there by 6 am, you can follow behind him. The race starts at 7:15 am, so that will give us enough time to get registered and not be too rushed. See you then!!!